Home Social Sciences Five It’s time to move on from ‘race’? The official ‘invisibilisation’ of minority ethnic disadvantage
Chapter
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Five It’s time to move on from ‘race’? The official ‘invisibilisation’ of minority ethnic disadvantage

  • Gary Craig and Maggie O’Neill
View more publications by Policy Press
Social Policy Review 25
This chapter is in the book Social Policy Review 25

Abstract

Gary Craig and Maggie O’Neill’s topical chapter on British national and local policies on ‘race’ argues that due in part to deliberate strategies to water down equality legislation, and partly due to the unintended consequences of ‘race’ policy, especially at the local level, ‘race’ policy has operated to sweep racism under the carpet or, worse, served to reinforce and institutionalise racism. They illustrate, through case studies of three English regions, how central and local government policies have made race and racism invisible. This, according to the authors, has led to the development of an institutionalised indifference to racial disadvantage, undermining the social welfare of minority ethnic groups in the UK.

Abstract

Gary Craig and Maggie O’Neill’s topical chapter on British national and local policies on ‘race’ argues that due in part to deliberate strategies to water down equality legislation, and partly due to the unintended consequences of ‘race’ policy, especially at the local level, ‘race’ policy has operated to sweep racism under the carpet or, worse, served to reinforce and institutionalise racism. They illustrate, through case studies of three English regions, how central and local government policies have made race and racism invisible. This, according to the authors, has led to the development of an institutionalised indifference to racial disadvantage, undermining the social welfare of minority ethnic groups in the UK.

Chapters in this book

  1. Front Matter i
  2. Contents iii
  3. Notes on contributors v
  4. Introduction xi
  5. Contemporary debates and developments in the UK
  6. Introducing Universal Credit 3
  7. Reconciling fuel poverty and climate change policy under the Coalition government: Green Deal or no deal? 23
  8. Doctors in the driving seat? Reforms in NHS primary care and commissioning 47
  9. Financing later life: pensions, care, housing equity and the new politics of old age 67
  10. Contributions from the Social Policy Association/East Asian Social Policy Research Network Conference of 2012
  11. It’s time to move on from ‘race’? The official ‘invisibilisation’ of minority ethnic disadvantage 93
  12. Corporations as political actors: new perspectives for health policy research 113
  13. Square pegs and round holes: extending existing typologies fails to capture the complexities of Chinese social policy 129
  14. The Earned Income Tax Credit as an anti-poverty programme: palliative or cure? 149
  15. Social policy and culture: the cases of Japan and South Korea 167
  16. Load-shedding and reloading: changes in government responsibility – the case of Israeli immigration and integration policy 2004–10 183
  17. Themed section: work, employment and insecurity
  18. ‘What unemployment means’ three decades and two recessions later 207
  19. Precarious employment and EU employment regulation 227
  20. How do activation policies affect social citizenship? The issue of autonomy 249
  21. Modernising social security for lone parents: avoiding fertility and unemployment traps when reforming social policy in Northern Europe 271
  22. Women, families and the ‘Great Recession’ in the UK 293
  23. Index 315
Downloaded on 21.1.2026 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.56687/9781447312840-007/html
Scroll to top button